“Meet the Mets” is still the opening lyric of the team’s theme song, at least that much hasn’t changed between the end of last season and the beginning of the next one. But just about everything else has. There is an expression in baseball even older than that Mets song,

A lot changed in the free-agent market over the past 24 hours and might change again in the next 24 the way things are going. Kyle Tucker, whom the Mets thought they were getting, is a Dodger. Bo Bichette is now a Met. And Cody Bellinger, with a B, might

If the Mets are a television series right now, they are the baseball version of “Extreme Makeover.” Other teams have changed since the end of last season. Not like they have. David Stearns is the Mets' president of baseball operations. If this were Hollywood, he’d be called the showrunner for

Don Mattingly finally made it to the World Series this year, as a coach with the Blue Jays. It never happened for him with the Yankees, of course, across a career with them when he was the greatest Yankee to never make it that far. Now on Sunday, when we

We know about the rarefied air that Aaron Judge is breathing after nine full seasons in the big leagues. He is now on the list of Yankees who have won three MVP Awards, along with Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra. Only two other Yankees -- Babe Ruth

There is perhaps no executive in baseball, not one, under more pressure to get things figured out for his team during this off-season than David Stearns of the Mets. Listen, all the folks in charge of baseball ops are under pressure, every year, especially if they’re running point for a

Even in this era when the Yankees don’t win the World Series the way they once did, there are still truths about them that still hold. One is this: They are still the Bronx Bombers and can prove it, because they hit more home runs than anybody else this past

There have been other Game 7’s in the World Series, and there have been other World Series to remember and replay across baseball history. But there has never been a better Game 7 than we got in Toronto on Saturday night and into Sunday morning. And there has never been

Pro football is nearly at midseason, college football is in full swing, the NBA season has just begun, along with the NHL. And you know what people are talking the most about this week? They are talking about baseball. They are talking about the Blue Jays and the Dodgers and

We know how much October loves stars in baseball, no doubt, we were just reminded of that all over again by Shohei Ohtani and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. And of course, at the very end of the American League Championship Series, there was George Springer once more turning into a home

Kyle Schwarber, who hit 56 home runs this past season for the Phillies, and who still might end up beating out Shohei Ohtani for National League MVP, is about to become a free agent. That is a lot of home runs to hit the market and more RBIs – 132

Maybe this is the way it’s supposed to be for the Red Sox and the Yankees: One game that feels like it’s for everything, even on the second night of October. Even the date has historical significance for the two teams, just because just about everything does. Oh, sure. This

Aaron Judge hit two more home runs on Wednesday night, Nos. 50 and 51. The latest two came against the White Sox. One was against Jonathan Cannon, who put it this way after the game: “He hits everything.” Judge does that. And against everybody. He has now hit 50 or

There was a time several years ago when I asked Vin Scully about the great Clayton Kershaw -- just because who better to have asked anyone a Dodgers question, about any of them back to Brooklyn and the 1950s? He had been around long enough to see Kershaw at his

You don’t want to bury the lead with Aroldis Chapman the way he’s been burying sinkers and 100 mph fastballs in the strike zone all season long. So here it is: Chapman isn’t just the best and most successful closer in baseball this year. He is pitching like one of

The Brewers are such a great story this season, in a great baseball city. Everybody can see that. But so, too, are the Tigers, who still think their kids can do in baseball what the kids from the Oklahoma City Thunder did in pro basketball this past season, and that's

There are plenty of reasons why the Mets have struggled the way they have to this point in their season, especially over the past month. Juan Soto isn’t close to being a big one. Or some kind of big bust. He’s not -- as easy a target as he is

It is something Bill Russell -- as great a winner as American professional sports has ever known -- once famously said about Joe Morgan -- who Russell knew as a kid when they attended high schools by each other in Oakland -- one of the great players baseball has ever

There’s this notion right now that if Kyle Schwarber keeps hitting like this, he just might make a run at Shohei Ohtani for the National League’s MVP Award. But the notion might actually be upside down, even if Ohtani is having himself another time. I believe that the way The

Aaron Judge is the Yankee you talk about first and think about first, even when he’s on the sidelines the way he is right now with a flexor strain. He is that big with the Yankees, in all ways. But after him? The Yankee who continues to dominate so much

We are now getting spoiled by Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani to the point where we sometimes might think that what the two of them are doing -- Babe Ruth East and Babe Ruth West -- is normal. No. And no matter. We can all just sit back and watch

There was a time in the old days -- like a couple of months ago -- when the Red Sox were seriously scuffling. They couldn’t hold late-inning leads when their closer, Aroldis Chapman, didn’t have the ball, were losing so many one-run games that you started to lose count and

You have to say the Red Sox have had good luck with hot kids over the last decade or so. Xander Bogaerts showed up in the big leagues at age 20 in 2013, got big hits in the ALCS and World Series that year and helped the Sox win it

The Rays play their home games this season in the Spring Training home of the Yankees, the team they are chasing hard right now in the American League East. And because it is a Spring Training facility, George M. Steinbrenner Field has a capacity of just 10,046. Small house this

The immediate reaction to the trade of Rafael Devers to the Giants -- and understandable one for Red Sox fans watching another franchise cornerstone traded away -- was that when the team plane took off Sunday night for Seattle without Devers on it, the Red Sox's season took off with